by Pieter J. Friedrich
4/17/03
The Second Gulf War is (officially) over, and many people will incorrectly argue that it's too late to debate the justness of that war.
When top US military leaders announced that the "major combat" in Iraq had drawn to a close, President Bush immediately began to threaten Syria with military action if Syria refused to cooperate with the administration's demands. Rumor in Washington has it that the president is also considering the possibility of military action against Iran, or North Korea, or even against Egypt. Now, more than ever before, it is the duty of every American who loves the Constitution to vocally and articulately denounce the immediate past military action in Iraq. Only when the American citizenry properly understand the illegitimacy of the Second Gulf War will they comprehend the illegitimacy of and begin to oppose continued further, and even less justified, military action in the Middle East. If we do not put a stop to President Bush's overbearing demands, we might soon find ourselves at war with France, as the French have refused to "cooperate" with the current administration's whims.
There are a great many reasons that people have given to justify the invasion of Iraq. Many of them originate with the Bush administration; some of them are commonly given by the pro-war populace. The reasons are:
Reason #1: Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Response: President Bush, in his speech to the General Assembly, said, "Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance." In a lengthy presentation to the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented "proof," including audio of Iraqi radio conversations, and satellite photos of what he said were "active chemical munitions bunkers." Why is it significant that Colin Powell presented satellite images as "proof" of illicit Iraqi activity? Let's take a look at information from the website, "The Truth About War."
"The first Bush administration did not feel that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait provided sufficient justification for a US military response in the eyes of the American public. But this problem would go away if it became apparent that Iraq wasn't going to stop with Kuwait, but also planned to attack Saudi Arabia...To address these problems the Bush administration told the Saudis that Iraqi troops were massing to invade them...The Bush administration provided the Saudis with secret satellite photos showing a huge Iraqi force massed on their border. At the same time the Bush administration also ordered commercial satellite firms to turn off their coverage of the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But there was one loophole in their plans-Russia's satellites.
"Since the fall of the Soviet Union, images from Russia's spy satellites have become commercially available...[The Russian images of the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, taken at the same time the US images were supposedly taken show] absolutely nothing. No Iraqi tanks, no trucks, no planes, no soldiers. American fighter planes can be seen, parked tip-to-tip, but no Iraqi military presence is anywhere near the Saudi border.
"The first Bush administration faked satellite photos to gain Saudi participation in its war, and to convince the American people that Hussein must be stopped from conquering the whole region...The whole thing was a fabrication by our government, and by many of the same people who are now urging war on us again."
The Bush administrations have a bad reputation for honesty when it comes to satellite images. While the fact that George Bush Sr. lied to justify the First Gulf War clearly does not mean that George W. Bush and his advisers have lied to justify the Second Gulf War, the similarity of the "proofs" used to justify both military actions is disturbing. The maxim "like father, like son" does bear true to an extent; a father's morality very often translates to the son.
Scott Ritter was the immediate past UN weapons inspector. In an interview with CNN, on July 17th, 2002, Ritter said that "As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability?"we" being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn't account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998." In other words, as of 1998, all Saddam's WMD and the means for producing them had been destroyed. Whatever was not destroyed would by now be harmless sludge, because the shelf-life for the weapons Saddam did possess was five years or less."
Ritter went on to say, "Tony Blair says he has a dossier; present the dossier. George W. Bush and his administration say they know with certainty; show us how you know." And, as we all know, Blair did present his dossier, which he maintained was the product of British intelligence work. The dossier was proven to be plagiarized from three different articles, one of which had been written by a graduate student.
Lastly, Ritter said that "...Iraq was [not] fully co-operating and when I make an assessment about Iraq's disarmament level, it has nothing to do with what Iraq has declared. I do not trust them, I take nothing they say at face value, it is based upon on the hard work of weapons inspectors who have verified that Iraq has been disarmed through their own independent sources."
Hans Blix, the current UN weapons inspector, and the man who led the team on an operation of inspection in Iraq just a few months ago, in response to US charges that Iraqis were playing cat-and-mouse with the inspectors by moving mobile WMD facilities about, said, "We have not seen any signs of things being moved around, whether tracks in the sand or in the ground...Inspectors have also taken samples at many sites, and those analyzed so far do not indicate that any illegal weapons had been moved."
So, Ritter maintains that all of Saddam's illicit weapons had been destroyed as of 1998, and that any weapons the inspectors missed would be useless by now. Blix says that there is absolutely no proof that Iraqis were moving illicit weapons immediately prior to UN inspections of suspected WMD sites. We refuse to trust the men who were actually on the ground in Iraq, inspecting supposed WMD sites. Yet we trust the Bush Jr. administration when they show us satellite images of illicit chemical weapons materials to justify war on Iraq, after the Bush Sr. administration was caught faking satellite images in order to justify war with the very same nation.
Throughout the war, the media has repeatedly reported the discovery of various WMD sites in Iraq. There was the huge compound, guarded by a general and camouflaged so that it could not be seen from the air, which turned out to be nothing. There was the facility that was said to contain sarin gas, and it was found to instead contain pesticides. Now, unable to find any of the mythical WMD that were a primary justification for the Second Gulf War, the Bush administration has decided that the weapons must have been moved to Syria.
Reason #2: If Saddam has WMD, he will doubtless use them against the US or her allies, or provide right-wing Islamic terrorists with WMD.
Response: Saddam threatened to use chemical weapons against US troops in the event of an invasion of Iraq, yet that threat seems to have been a bluff. If ever there was justification for Saddam's use of the banned weapons he once had, the US invasion of Iraq was that justification. Yet the United States has invaded and occupied Iraq, and not once have Iraqis attempted to use chemical or biologial weapons on our troops. The most they have done is to fire a handful of banned, yet misaimed and ineffective SCUD missiles.
Also, assuming terrorists decided to instigate another attack on the US, chances are good they would not get those weapons from Iraq. Nuclear physicist Dr. J. Gordon Prather, in an October 6th, 2001 article on WorldNetDaily pointed out that there was absolutely no history of weapons being, as the site "The Truth About War" puts it, "imported from the terrorist cell countries-they're always homemade near the target site." Dr. Prather maintains that it is much simpler for terrorists to simply buy, steal, or construct what they need here in the US. For instance, Stinger missiles are readily available to anyone who can discover the date and means of transportation, and then intercept one of the frequent government shipments of this type of weapon, says Dr. Prather.
The argument that Saddam might provide terrorists with WMD, and so the US should topple Saddam's regime to prevent that possibility, is based, as many things in this war are, on a series of unlikely "ifs." If Saddam, a secular Muslim dictator, decides to arm fundamentalist Muslim terrorists with WMD, if Saddam possesses those WMD, if those terrorists somehow manage to smuggle those WMD into the US, and if those terrorists can manage to deploy those WMD without discovery, then a tragedy might occur. As Ritter said in that CNN interview, "We cannot go to war on guesswork, hypothesis and speculation. We go to war on hardened fact."
People speak of the possiblity of an Iraqi act of aggression against U.S. allies, and if such occurred, the US would, by virtue of the fact that treaties and alliances do currently exist, be obligated to respond militarily against Iraq. However, it is good to keep in mind the words of George Washington, who said in his Farewell Address of 1796, "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements." If we are to abide by the wisdom of Washington, then we should attempt to negate our alliances with all countries as soon as possible. Sadly, though, even Washington knew that such non-interventionism was unlikely, as he said, "In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish."
Reason #3: Saddam's regime is very brutal.
Response: John Quincy Adams' famous quote is perhaps the best articulation of what US action ought to be in response to Saddam's brutality. Adams said, "The United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is a well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. If the United States took up all foreign affairs, it would become entangled in all the wars of interest and intrigue, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own soul."
Yet many people today do not accept Adams' philosphy, using as justification for US intervention in the affairs of other nations the possibility that if we do not intervene then so-and-so might become the next Hitler and instigate another Holocaust. So let us attempt to put Saddam's brutal actions towards his people in perspective.
In the article "Civil Defense," featured in the March 2003 issue of "Access To Energy," a newsletter published by chemist Dr. Arthur Robinson, Dr Robinson speaks of the vast numbers of innocents slaughtered by 20th century regimes. He says, "...The [Red] Chinese killing the greatest number, the Soviets ranking second, and the Nazis third, while Cambodia is the record holder in percentage killed." Keeping in mind that all Saddam's major crimes took place in the 20th century, please note that Iraq is not one of the nations listed here. In other words, Iraq is not one of the major human rights violators of the past century. Also note that Soviet Russia was our close ally in World War Two, and Red China currently holds "Most Favored Nation" trading status.
The US does not have a history of responding to the brutalities of other governments. The US ignored the 1994 cold-blooded slaughter of nearly a million Tutsis by members of the Hutu tribe in Rwanda. In 1989, over a million Chinese students gathered to protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, and Red Chinese troops fired on the demonstrators and ran them over with tanks, killing an estimated 2,000 students, and the US did nothing. In the 1970's, the US actively backed the communst ruler of Cambodia, Pol Pot, who was responsible for the deaths of 1 in 4 Cambodians, an estimated three million people in a 4-year period.
Iraq is said to be responsible for the deaths of one million innocents.
Failure to intervene, or improper intervention, in the past obviously does not illegitamize intervention today. After all, one might argue that US failure to act against the governments responsible for these listed crimes is deplorable. The US is incapable of intervening to prevent every crime against humanity that occurs on this Earth., so, if she is to intervene to prevent any crime against humanity, she must decide which crimes to prevent based on how terrible those crimes are. Iraq places low on the scale when one attempts to grade the crimes against humanity which have taken place in the recent past.
Reason #4: Saddam has, for 12 years, refused to comply with countless UN disarmament resolutions.
Response: Firstly, let me point out that the reasoning that says we must destroy Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" is flawed. As nuclear physicist Dr. J. Gordon Prather reasons in his October 6th, 2001 article, "There was a time when only a nuke was a weapon of mass destruction, and we know Iraq has never had nukes. So, insecticides and disease germs became weapons of mass destruction. After the twin-tower bombing, a load of fertilizer soaked in fuel oil was a weapon of mass destruction...The Sept. 11th terrorists were armed with a new class of weapons of mass destruction: box-cutters! Are we to invade Iraq to destroy their box-cutter factories? Of course, you say, that's not fair. The weapons of mass destruction were Boeing 767s full of jet fuel, not box-cutters. So are we to invade Iraq to destroy their Boeing 767 factories?"
Secondly, it needs to be pointed out that though Saddam's inaction for the past 12 years is often used as a reason for abandoning diplomacy and moving to war, it is actually a reason in favor of continued diplomacy. For 12 years, Iraq has not occupied a single square inch of foreign soil; for 12 years, Iraq has endured, albeit it grudgingly, the no-fly zone and patrols by the US and British air-forces; for 12 years, Iraq has endured constant bombing; for 12 years, Iraq has endured UN sanctions...sanctions that some people say are responsible for the deaths of 4000-5000 Iraqi children a month.
Thirdly, the legitimacy of going to war because Saddam has violated UN resolutions must be questioned. It is beyond doubt that such is reason we have gone to war. Even Rush Limbaugh, on March 14th, 2003, said, "This war is all about UN resolutions." Yet, as William Norman Grigg says in a March 18th, 2003 article in "The New American," the John Birch Society's monthly publication, "Historically, the conservative critique of the UN has been that it should not do what it claims the power to do -- namely, enforce the will of the "international community" regarding disarmament, environmental regulations, and so forth. Under Bush, there has been a dramatic revision in the conservative party line: Now the UN is being criticized for failing to carry out the tasks it has set itself. The 'problem,' in other words, is that the UN has too little power, so the president is willing to lend it some of ours."
Grigg says, in an April 21st article in the same magazine, "Our military's mission is to fight and win our nation's wars. American patriots can embrace a war to repel an aggressor, confront an imminent threat, or punish an attack on our nation. But is it right for Americans to die to enforce UN disarmament decrees?"
Reason #5: Congress didn't declare war, yet they did pass a resolution authorizing the president "to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to enforce the United Nations Security Council Resolutions."
Response: There are two problems with this argument.
First, if war is to be declared, Congress must declare it, according to Article I, Section VIII of the US Constitution. Congress simply cannot constitutionally relinquish their power to declare war to the president without passing a constitutional amendment to place the power to declare war within the jurisdiction of the executive branch.
Secondly, as the site "The Truth About War" says, "Congress passes hundreds of resolutions every year. Some of the resolutions call for days or months of recognition: National Postage Stamp Day, National Day of Prayer, and Black History Month have all been the subject of past resolutions. A few years ago Congressmen Steve Largent convinced his colleagues to pass a resolution calling for the complete scrapping of the US Income Tax code, replacing it with a more equitable tax system by 2002. Of course, everyone voted for it, because it didn't mean anything; it was symbolic. And we still have the Income Tax code." In other words, the resolution didn't even relinquish the Congressional power to declare war; all it did was state that, as a general rule, Congress would back any enforcement, by the president, of UN Security Council Resolutions.
Reason #6: Saddam has ties to Al-Quaida, and may have been a financier of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
Response: This is the only really legitimate reason for going to war against Iraq, assuming it is true. However, it is not true. There is simply no proof that such is the case.
15 of the 19 hijackers of September 11th, 2001, were Saudi citizens, and none of the remaing 4 were Iraqi. To again quote the April 21st article in "The New American" by Grigg, "At least some of them [the hijackers] were led by members of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, in an operation coordinated by Osama bin Laden, a Sunni Muslim terrorist from Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden received aid, support, and sanctuary from Afghanistan's Taliban junta. In trying to tie together Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network, which organized 9-11, the most potent 'evidence' the Bush administration was willing to provide was the existence of an al-Qaeda training camp in northeastern Iraq -- a territory controlled by Kurdish radicals, not Saddam Hussein."
According to the site "The Truth About War," it is "important to remember that Saddam Hussein was our government's favored tool for containing militant Islamism in the region." Also, one should note Secretary of State Powell's own words to the Security Council, when he is speaking about a suspected terrorist camp while attempting to link Iraq and Al-Quaida. He says, "Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq." (The italics are my own.) The fact that an Al-Quaida camp is operating in northern Iraq, in areas outside Saddam's sphere of control, is not credible evidence of a Saddam/Al-Quaida link. According to a news article in "The Age," and Australian publication, even the CIA has been unable to unearth credible evidence of a Saddam/Al-Quaida link, and Bush has said that a Saddam/Al-Quaida link, "...Is not the angle they're [the CIA] exploring now. The angle they're exploring is the production of weapons of mass destruction."
Conclusion
To conclude, let's look at a quote from "The New American," in a March 24th, 2003 article by William F. Jasper, "In proposing that these United States go to war and send our troops into battle on the other side of the world, President Bush must satisfy two important requirements: demonstrate that this is being done to defend the United States of America; and obtain a congressional declaration war. He has done neither."
Jasper also goes on to say, "[The administration has not] shown that Iraq is a greater menace than North Korea, which threatens our 40,000 troops in the area with weapons of mass destruction every bit as deadly as Saddam's. Or a greater threat than Fidel Castro's Cuba (which is closely allied with Iraq) only 90 miles from our shores. Or a greater threat than our new 'allies' Russia and China. Nor has it shown the resolve to secure our borders against the tide of illegal aliens (including terrorists) swamping our shores, an absolutely essential requirement before we launch into any war."
Indeed, if our government is worried about hostile nations attacking the US with weapons of mass destruction, then it should not have given $6 billion, since 1994, to North Korea to use for nuclear reactors. After all, it was North Korea, not Iraq, that threatened the US in February, 2003, with a preemptive nuclear strike.
I do not know what President George W. Bush's reasons are for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam's regime. Some people have suggested that he is satisfying his family's honor by finishing the war that his father didn't have the guts to go through with. Others have said that Bush is an imperialist, who's wish is to increase US power internationally, especially in the Middle East...that is, increase US power merely for the sake of increasing US power. Perhaps one of those reasons is true, but I don't know, and I won't presume to state the president's unspoken motivations.
Whatever the motivation, it is clear that the war was unjustified. Iraq was a beaten and crumbling nation, protected by a 5th rate military, before the Second Gulf War began. There was fairly credible proof before the war began that Saddam did not possess weapons of mass destruction, and there is very credible proof now that Iraq has been occupied that Saddam's illicit weapons were all destroyed by 1998. The president has waged an unconstitutional war, and Congress has been complicit in allowing the president to wage the war unconstitutionally. And there is no proof whatsoever of a link between Saddam and Al-Quaida.
Osama Bin Laden and the members of Al-Quaida were those responsible for the September 11th, 2001 attacks. The US should finish the job it began in the invasion of Afghanistan, and find and kill Bin Laden and continue with its Special-Operations dismembering of the Al-Quaida terrorist organization. Once that job is completed, it will be time for the US to move on and leave September 11th in the past, and to end the war on terrorism.
